


I'm Sorry I Never Really Knew You

by TheDragonLich



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Dream No More Ending (Hollow Knight), Gen, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonLich/pseuds/TheDragonLich
Summary: Hornet gives her last two family members a burial.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 83





	I'm Sorry I Never Really Knew You

**Author's Note:**

> This is not technically my first fanfic but it is my first time posting one. My first fanfic was supposed to go up not long after I created this account which was at least a month ago now and it was supposed to be no longer than this one at most. And was also planned to be really fluffy but it got real angsty real quick. It then it turned in to at least 3000 words if I remember correctly and it spawned another fic that has yet to be written because I didn't like how one of the paragraphs flowed with the rest of the fic and but still liked the paragraph itself and decided I would just go from there with it. I decided that I didn't like the fic in its current write so I'm going probaly going to rewrite it at some point in the future or it may just turn into several different fics like I mentioned with the other paragraph.
> 
> I then started writing something else to give myself a break from the first one and now I have at least 7 half finished fics or ideas in my docs which I guess is good cause it means I won't be out of ideas for a while.
> 
> Any ways I hope you enjoy this and if you're a writer please do leave some tips in the comments especially about dialogue and interactions. And if someone would please tell how to transfer stuff from google docs to here without it coming up as a bunch of code or recomend me a somewhere better to write or something that would be fantastic.
> 
> Edit:I went ahead an took some of JaxxCapta’s advice added some more description were I felt it was needed so hopefully it hits a little harder now and you place the setting better.

She stood in front of the graves she had dug with her very own claws for her last two remaining family members. The dirt clotting in between the plates of her shell and underneath her cloak leaving a scratchy, suffocating feeling. She had carefully placed their shattered masks a few feet away from her upon one of the steps to the Black Egg Temple as not to defile them further while she prepared their burials.

She had never really known either of them. Yes, she had fought and told things to Ghost and she had seen the Pure Vessel the few times she had gone to the White Palace with her mother or when her sire had come to negotiate, but the Pure Vessel had always seemed like a far off untouchable figure as a child and she had been afraid of getting to attached to Ghost try to establish any sort of companionship with them. 

Maybe it hurt less this way. And maybe that was better. To not know if the feelings and thoughts they had were just as complex as her own. The Pure Vessel obviously had something of the sort or they would not have failed.

And what about Ghost? Ghost who had gone out of their way to listen and help the few bugs left in this forsaken kingdom when they could. Ghost who had tried to learn everything they could while they were still here. Ghost who had killed the infection at its core rather than repeating the process of their sibling as they had been intended to.

No, Ghost had not been empty at all. And if they weren't empty had any of those corpses in the abyss been empty, was the Pure Vessel doomed from the start. 

She wondered if it would hurt any less if she had not followed Ghost and seen the life inside of them. If she had not named them and allowed them to carve a permanent place in her memories.

There were many things she regretted. Most she could not have controlled. Like not getting to know her mother and elder sibling better before she went to sleep and they were imprisoned and so much more.

But the regrets that always stung the most were the ones she knew she could have done something about. The what if's that would haunt her to her own grave and she would likely never have the answer to.

She could have stayed in Deepnest and tried to lead its' denizens and convinced them to stay, but she hadn't because it hurt too much to see her mother, and she didn't try to lead her people and now they were gone and she didn't know where to and they had left her behind and she had failed her mother and Deepnest.

She didn't have to kill the other vessels that came before Ghost. Who's to say any of them even would have tried to break the seals and take their siblings' place. Maybe she could have sent them away without killing them or simply told them not to and they might have listened to her, but she hadn't even thought before starting a fight with them and they were dead now and she had murdered more of her family voluntarily under the impression they were just constructs because she hadn't known better and hadn’t bothered to try and learn.

She could have known Ghost. She could have learned about them and they could have learned things about her and she could have taught them things all the she knew and maybe they could have been a family even if just for a little while. But she had been too afraid of her heart breaking even more from their inevitable loss to let herself go near them and now it was too late.

And all she could do was live with the choices she made and the things she knew she could not change no matter how hard she tried. No apology or bloodshed or begging would bring any of them back, they were all gone. She couldn't rewind the past. All she could do was learn from it and try not to make the same mistakes.

She turned to look at her siblings' remains. She supposed they had waited long enough and she should finally lay them both to rest as they deserved.

She first gently picked up the Pure Vessels' mask and laid it in their grave before turning back to do the same with Ghost.

She paused before setting Ghost in their final resting place. She wondered if she should lay them in the same grave, if they would be happier resting together. Even if they had not known each other in life, she thinks they would have liked to. Ghost had gone through a lot to save them after all, perhaps simply out of kinship, and the Pure Vessel would likely be grateful to have been freed by its little sibling even if they had both died in the end.

Yes, she would bury them together she decided. She nestled Ghost's mask in between the horns of the Pure Vessel, almost as though they were giving their smaller sibling a play stag ride. She wondered if they actually would have done that for them had they had the chance. Had they both lived.

She should say something to them both. They deserved that much at least.

"An apology will not bring you both back nor will it fix anything else here but you both deserve one non the less." She began, already knowing that they both deserved so much more than a hastily dug and relatively shallow grave and a speech that was little more than a string of apologies thought up practically on the spot by their one living family member who barely knew them at best. They both deserved infinitely more than what she could give them but this was all she could offer right now.

"Ghost I'm sorry I never gave us the chance to know one another even though we were the only family we both had left that wasn't dead or imprisoned, even though I had every opportunity to.” She could already feel the ache in throat. She couldn’t do this, but she had to. Both for them and for herself lest she have one more regret that could have been avoided cling to her. “Pure Vessel I'm sorry we were never allowed to speak to one another, that we never got to be siblings as we should have been.” It was slightly easier to talk to them, likely because she had never known them, but only slightly and that didn’t mean she couldn’t still feel the sob aching to come out and hear her voice come down to a whisper to keep it in. “Ghost I'm sorry you never got to be a child and... and that you'll never get to grow up.” Ghost really had been just a child, hadn’t they. Would they have been as tall as the Pure Vessel or only as tall as herself. They would never know now.”Pure Vessel I'm sorry that you were never allowed to be someone... rather than a something, that you never even had a name, only a title and... that it's to late to give you a name now.” Who would they have been had they not had fate set upon them before the had even been conceived? She supposed that was something else she would never know, yet another ‘what if’ that she had no control over but would always wonder about. “I’m sorry you were both made to suffer, that all of our siblings were made to suffer. Each and everyone of you deserved better and by the time I realized that it was to late.” Why did they all have to die? Why couldn’t at least some of them have been given a chance to lead an actual life? Non of them had asked to be born but they had been. Only to have their new lives cruelly stripped away from them before they even knew what was going on or in the Pure Vessel’s case given a fate worse than death. The corpse of Hallownest could sing her sire praises of mercy and heroism all they wanted but you must have some wickedness in your heart to do something such as that to your own child and to willingly look at all the others as a necessary loss. “I’m sorry we never got to be a family, and I'm sorry I never really knew either of you.” By the gods she wished they had been a family with her entire being. She wished she had more time to be a daughter to her mother. She wished she would have had the opportunity to be the little sister to Pure Vessel. She wished she would have given Ghost the opportunity to be her little sibling. Instead she had pushed them away in fear of the pain the relationship would bring and hurt them both far worse in the process. She was a coward. “I won't let your sacrifices be in vain. I will not let you be forgotten. Wherever I may go or whatever I may do I will carry your memories with me."And that was all she could really give them now wasn’t it. She couldn’t give them a home or a name for her elder sibling or give them a second chance at life. Remembrance was all she could grant them. 

She could feel the sting of tears in her eyes as she cried. When had that happened? Had she really been so caught in her thoughts that she had allowed tears to trail down her mask? The ache in her throat had worsened to a stinging pressure that was begging her to finally wail as her siblings now truly empty masks stared up at her. 

All she could do was offer apologies for things that were her fault and apologies for things she had no control over. 

All she could do was offer apologies to someone who had never been given the chance to have a identity beyond 'a sacrifice' and a child who would never get the chance to grow up now. Both of them meant to die from the very moment they hatched.

She had never truly known any of her family before all of them had died and now she never would.

A part of her wished she had died with them, and perhaps a piece of her had, but she had far to many dead to live on for to let herself die just yet.

She began to cover their masks with soil. Slowly burying their lifeless gazes with layers of dirt.

No one else was around to witness their burial and it was likely no one knew they were both dead and the infection was gone yet. Maybe it was okay to allow herself to show some weakness now that the infection was over and the only two beings even remotely relying on her were dead.

With the last of her family both buried and their nails stuck in the ground and crossed over the burial site as a grave marker Hornet allowed herself to do something she hadn't done in a long, long time.

The Daughter of Hallownest wept.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this all the way through. If this made you think of a certain song or you were just listening to music while reading this please let me know, I love hearing new music. 
> 
> I briefly thought about titling this It's Alright from the song of the same name by Mother Mother but deicided it didn't fit to well and I liked the first title I gave it better.
> 
> Thanks for reading my ramblings folks.


End file.
